


The Last Grasp for Freedom

by Sanara1



Category: Alternate Universe - Fandom, Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Hunted, POV First Person, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 08:50:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20832719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanara1/pseuds/Sanara1
Summary: This is strongly based off of a dream I had last night. If you can think of a better fandom for me to put it in, please let me know!The world of man has ended, and I had only come to realize that too late. It did not happen overnight, and certainly not without prompting. When the fight for resources became more expensive than the cybernetic ‘enhancements’ of the next age, man had only one option. It was change or be destroyed, but not because we didn’t have a choice in it all.(Completed for now)





	1. Chapter 1

The world of man has ended, and I had only come to realize that too late. It did not happen overnight, and certainly not without prompting. When the fight for resources became more expensive than the cybernetic ‘enhancements’ of the next age, man had only one option. It was change or be destroyed, but not because we didn’t have a choice in it all.

When the cyborgs first began the changing, it was all a choice. Live as an Organic, and move to organic regions where your kind could just barely flourish, or be enhanced and stay within the confines of our new society. The Organics that refused to leave were, at first, watched once the Enhanced began to change. 

It was a gradual change that only the most stubborn of Organics ignored. First, it was simply that the Enhanced enjoyed their new outlook on the world. Different enhancements allotted different new abilities. Enhanced leg muscles and skeletal systems allowed for faster track times, and so children with these enhanced abilities were cut from all sports and extra circulars with Organic children. When someone enhanced their arms or chest, strides were made to segregate wrestling matches and fine art galleries. Those with enhanced organs were met with extended lifespans well beyond Organics, and this were considered a strain on the population. They were then challenged with expiration dates, which helped combat the population boom, but felt equally unfair to those who had spent the money. 

More often yet, parents were getting their children enhanced to boost their expiration dates and abilities as they aged. Many Organic Only groups began to riot, and so the government put a halt to enhancements on anyone under the age of 18. Suddenly, many illegal enhancements entered the market, and children were still being enhanced, given false expiration dates, and many began perishing long before their age of 18 due to medical issues. 

The struggle would have continued if not for the economic collapse of China, halting the entire worlds productions. This led to world wide food shortages, money no longer being useable, and the success of the Enhanced. Most no longer required food, and all could out perform Organics in almost every task. The workforce rioted, but no one could bar Enhanced from working. They soon carried the ability to produce for the world on their backs. Time factored little into their needs, and many had no need of sleep. They existed outside of these realms that normal Organics needed to survive, and found themselves much more valuable. 

With the rise in Enhanced success, Organics were quickly found to be second class citizens, living where possible when the banks foreclosed on their homes, and eating whatever they could reach then food production was no longer an importance. Only the Enhanced could afford to own animals as pets, and many were devoured in the first few years. 

At this time, many Enhanced created Enhanced-only societies in the rubble of major cities. Organics living within city limits found themselves segregated from the workforce and living spaces of the Enhanced. Shortly after, laws were passed that restricted Organic movement in hopes of rehabilitating the earth where it had been poisoned by Organic influence. 

The number of Organics began to dwindle, as those who could afford an enhancement did in an attempt to avoid further scrutiny. Organics began enhancing whatever they could, leaving their friends and family behind in the cities that still accepted Organics, until, finally, a worldwide consensus was reached. Organics were to be detained and shipped to a place they could no longer spread unendingly- they could have boundaries and do ass they pleased without further harm to the world’s environment. 

Our story begins here, where the last few Organics hide among the ruins of their once great society, avoiding capture and deportation. All remain weary of one another, yet forced to work together in mutual fear of the future for Organics, whose numbers continue to dwindle…


	2. Chapter 2

This was certainly not what I had in mind when I was a child. My life, though decent when it began, spiraled uncontrollably into shit as soon as the Organic ghettos were established. I had dreams, aspirations, even hopes for a better world. But no one could have guessed that this was the world the children were growing into. In fact, I had always wanted to be a baker, and it seemed like a reasonable goal until the first emergence of the Enhanced. Everyone had to eat at some point in their day, and most folks ate 3 meals a day- but not the Enhanced. As their numbers grew, the need for foods dropped. The first few years weren’t as bad, but once local bakeries started going out of business, suddenly my dream seemed more foolish than anything. 

But college is where the real problems began. I had changed my goals, and in 2 more years I was to become a nurse if I ever straightened up my Grade Point Average. Oh if only I could go back to those days, fretting about tests in Mrs. Ames class and learning how to handle vaccines. But the first waves of Organics were being collected and removed from the inner cities. My town had been built around a college, and the local news hinted nothing about the changes coming our way. When my roommate and I were told to move from the dorms, my mother opened her doors to the both of us, and I dropped my degree for a life on the hill I had grown up on. 

Many families were relocated in those days, and the Enhance surely forgot what it was like to be human, for no one had bothered to set up a clinic for those needing assistance- but with conditions worsening with every bath of Organic citizens, the strain for resources became too much to handle. I did what I could, applying my mediocre studies to the community, and being paid in extra food rations produced by backyard farms. We didn’t know what would happen when winter came, but many of our elderly didn’t make it that far. We began calling these Organic neighborhoods ghettos, and truly the conditions wouldn’t have been so hard had the Enhanced simply listened to what our needs were. 

It didn’t seem to matter to them. None of us did. Not until we got enhancements ourselves, anyway. I say we, but a precious few remained against the very idea, myself included. My mother had fallen with illness and had no other choice- we didn’t have the medications to fix her, but those offering surgical procedures could cleanse her before they put in her enhancements. So she left my siblings and I with the house. My old Roommate from collage left to be bussed to another ghetto where she believed her own parents had been staying. No one who resisted these changes were left alive, and until the decision to remove the ghettos became a real threat, I had been complacent. 

But no longer.  
••••••  
The seasons were changing, there was no doubt about that. I had not come prepared, for there was no time that day that I fled. No time to think towards the future, and certainly no time to grab my warmer clothes from the attic where my mother had stored them. It had still been summer, after all, and it certainly would have been suspicious to our sentinel guard if I brought down large boxes of clothing. No, I could only grab what I usually need for that day and nest a few necessities at the bottom of my work duffle bag, with what was left of my nonperishable food rations tucked carefully in my usual lunch pack. It hurt leaving what I couldn’t carry with me. Fresh vegetables, for one. But my old childhood journals, paintings my sister had done, and my mothers old bible all lay dormant in the home I would never get to see again. 

All that didn’t matter now as I pressed myself against an oak tree in this overgrown downtown suburbia. Morning was finally upon me, and while my breath was visible in the cold daylight air, the rest of my body hunkered behind a bare woolen blanket that scratched me in the same way it had when it was used for sleep overs in my youth. But I had no time to continue resting, and no time to reminisce. Quickly, the blanket was folded and stowed away, and I peered under a bush that had surely been well kept in the better years. 

The Enhanced didn’t come through here anymore, so they had no reason to keep the nature at bay. In areas like this all over the country green was reclaiming land that would have been perfect to house Organics, if not for the city ban. But I had no interest to see where they were sending us, and I certainly wasn’t going to wait around and find out if it were any better than our past living situation. 

Those of us who had escaped right before they began shipping residents out had formed a sort of pact. It had been myself and a small handful of other surviving Organics. I knew each of them by name even if I didn’t particularly care for any of them, although I had done my best to beg my brother to follow me. There had been six of us children in total- two older brothers, an older sister, one younger sister and a younger brother. One of my older brothers and my older sister had been collected in different ghettos, and I had no clue where they were currently. My youngest brother had been living with his dad when his father took his entire family and booked the first flight out as soon as the sectioning had begun. My youngest sister died long before this tragedy, in a car wreck that left only my brother and I with my mother. When my Mother had been Enhanced, it was only my remaining brother and myself, though he wasn’t one to resist authority. I assume he’d been shipped out on the first boat out, though I couldn’t imagine him telling on me. 

The sound of a drone whistled overhead, and I ducked down further into the brush. Did the chill of the bush cloak my heat signature? Was there any way to even tell? I pressed my fist into my brow in anger, knowing full well that I didn’t have time to dawdle in the past. No, it was time to go. I knew my destination, the old Newport Mall off Chestnut Street, but I was unsure if the others in our party would make it. 

I streaked across the blacktop of the road through a row of houses that had been reclaimed by ivy. If I had the time, they would have made for excellent scavenging, but with the drone flying overhead, I had neither the time nor the ability. The mall was only an hour away, and by noon when the sun was at its highest point, my party planned to meet in the central hub that donned a food court and play area. I hadn’t been back since it had been built, but there were no children playing on it now.

The hour long trip meant nothing to me except plenty of walking, and I certainly warmed up on the way. Not that it helped, as by the time I got to the mall the sun had warmed everything up enough to make me sweat. At this point, I only hoped enough of the skylights held up and is trapping a bit of the cold. 

Once I got there, getting in was the easy enough. Of course the doors wouldn’t be guarded- they were barely even closed thanks to previous looters having smashed the glass. I ducked in, careful to avoid the glittering bits that had been trotted on many times over, and found my way to the food court. All around me lay the shattered remains of my small town's only hangout spot, and I was almost nostalgic as I looked into the ramshackled University clothing store. Go team Big Blue. 

A sound just behind me made me turn sharply, cracking glass underneath my army surplus boots. Behind me stood three of our five party members. Jamie and his sister Allison looked on with surprise and fear in their eyes, and beside them stood Trish who was very pregnant and breathing hard. I made the fourth and all they needed to wait on was Derek, a man who acted like he never graduated high school. Not to lie, I wouldn’t have been too surprised if he didn’t show. Or upset. 

But we all knew what we had to do. We would talk quietly with one another until it was dark, share a meal and plan our next move… which was what? I had no plan. I didn’t even know where I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to end up in the arms of the Enhanced. I shuffled slightly before joining them in the children’s playpen, but it didn’t seem right for us to speak just. We sat on a couple of cushioned benches and simply looked at one another. 

I’m much too comfortable in the coolness of the shaded building not to find myself showing a bit of a smile, and those around me all felt themselves melting slightly, happy just to be safe and comfortable for the first time since leaving the ghetto. Though I couldn’t help but notice Trish and Jamie both had jackets- with Allison coming in close behind in her puffy vest. 

Trish was the first to brake out the shacks, pulling out a small stash of crackers, a tin of tuna and two candy bars. I was thrilled at seeing tuna, despite its banged up can, and removed a can of pineapple I picked up from a Minute Mart. Jamie and Allison were excited to present their haul- canned peaches, a large unsealed bag of almonds and several loose peppermint york patties. 

Without further contributions, the four of us began to dig in, ravenously finishing off the tuna on crackers, breaking the protein bars in four pieces, mixing the peaches and pineapple, chasing it down with the almonds, and finishing the small feast with Trish taking one candybar, myself taking the other, and the two kids splitting the york patties right down the middle. We were all in good spirits when the sound of footsteps echoed behind us, spooking Jamie and Allison.

I wasn’t too worried, as we were all waiting on Derek. I turned to see not just the hotshot in handcuffs locked behind his back, but two Enhanced soldiers trotting bored behind him. Trish sucked in a breath, but none of them had seen us yet, and that was our stroke of luck as we all ducked down further into the playpen, ignoring the cans and wrappers at our feet.


	3. Chapter 3

As quietly as we could manage, the four of us huddled near the opening of the play pen, and I knew the adult decision had to be made. I pointed towards Jamie and Allison, directing them to take the far hall that led away from the central food court, and then to myself and Trish. I pointed towards the University store with the busted windows directly in front of us and nodded sharply- there wasn’t any time to hold a discussion or weigh pros and cons. I took Trish's hand and as quietly as I could, I pulled her along with me into the dusty storefront. 

I didn’t get a chance to see if Jamie or Allison ever got away, but there were no sudden sounds of boots thundering down the hallway. As carefully as I could, I led Trish back behind the counter and leaned against the wall where the computer had once been, keeping well below the line of sight. Magazines littered the floor back here, with little to nothing on the shelves under the counter except hangers and a bundle of clothes that could have been anything from rags to t-shirts.

Outside of the store front I could hear speaking- no, pleadings. It was Derek, pleading with the Enhanced. I couldn’t make out his words, but theirs were clear enough to mean business.  
“You said they would be here.” The voice was angry. Derek must have tried to respond, but the sound of metal on skin drove the words from his mouth. He grunted harshly as he hit the floor.  
“You Organics are all the same,” the second Enhanced spoke. “Hiding like rats, breaking and lying whenever you get the chance. It’s not enough that we give you a place to live, and free passage somewhere else. No- you have to make it difficult for people trying to help.”  
I heard the click of something being activated- a sound I had become well accustomed to while in the ghetto. Some of the sentinel guards were a little trigger ready, and it seemed these pair were too.   
“I’m sick of this. If the Organics don’t want to be helped, I wont help them.” Beyond the counter Derek gasp and pleaded, though it was to no avail. A shot rang out following by a dull thud of meat hitting the ground. Beside me Trish grasp my hand and breathed harshly. I wasn’t sure of her rocking back and forth was due to her harsh intakes, or if she had retreated due to her own fear.

I didn’t have time to linger on her, or comfort her much more than grasping her hand tightly, for the first voice spoke up again. “We still have to search the area and canvas what we can. There are cans and wrappers in the play pen- and the cans are still wet. We’ll do a sweep and see if they’re still here.”

And then the footsteps continued on, as though there wasn’t a body lying out in the open. Beside me Trish gasp, and doubled over, and I resisted the urge to shush her. Her hand tightened around mine as her other propped her up where she knelt. Below her, water began to pool, and immediately I recoiled from her- her baby was coming and I was entirely ill prepared. 

After a few moments of her breathing harshly, and painfully loudly, her body stopped shaking and she looked up to me with glazed eyes. “I need somewhere to rest,” she groaned, being as quiet as she could manage. I looked around, unsure where to take her until I noticed; the managers closet! Carefully, I tread towards the door and tried it, almost surprised when it opened without too much struggle.

Trish hadn’t moved just yet, so I peered into the darkness for a cursory glance. The room wasn’t much bigger than a closet, with a small stall for a desk. On the other side against the wall was a cubical bookcase that held little to nothing and made a sort of sectioned off cubby. On the floor sat a threadbare rug and the room held little else, and no lighting aside from what filtered in through the door. At the very back of the room was a door, and while it made me nervous, I didn’t have a lot of choices. 

Getting Trish's attention, I waved her through the door and shut it behind me as quietly as I was able, enclosing us in complete darkness. It didn’t take long for me to fumble around in my duffle bag to retrieve a flashlight, and turn the light up towards the ceiling in an attempt to brighten the place up a bit, which worked considerably well for a run of the mill flashlight. However, with a groan from Trish, I refocused on the problem at hand. 

As carefully as I could manage, I eased her coat off and tossed it to the side, eased her onto the rug, made a pillow out of her backpack and began removing her soaked pants. All the birthing videos I had watched couldn’t prepare me for the next few minutes, but with a few moments she was pushing. Of course her body would know what to do, but it didn’t make me any more nervous, especially with her loud breaths and quiet tears that filtered down her face. I wanted to hush her, to pause this entire moment till it was safer, but most of all, I wanted to run. 

The last feeling burrowed deep into my stomach and settled like a solid mass. I wanted to run, leave Trish here to deal with her own set of problems and get myself to safety. I pulled away as another round of contractions met her and she cried out in quiet agony. I could see her stomach tense as the child within it pushed against her, and I quietly retreated from the room, making sure to open the door just as her groan ended and she caught her breath. 

I shut it back behind me and sat in the stillness following. My heart hammered in my chest in fear, and I peered over the counter at the relative abandon of the food court. Nothing moved, and no hints of Jamie and Allisons fate were seen. All that remained of their presence were the feet of Derek, barely in view of the shattered display windows. I ducked back down and pressed my hands against the floor to feel the cool tile in hopes of calming my still thudding heart. 

Trish's groans coming from the back room were barely a low hum out her, and I knew just as well that she was keeping herself as quiet as possible, but it wouldn’t be long before the baby happened. I took slow breaths in an attempt to calm myself, and began figuring out what to do next. I grabbed at the rags under the counter and returned to Trish, who had rolled over on to her knees and pressed her forehead to her backpack, her yowls of pain smothered by the fabric. 

I found myself at her posterior flattening out the wad of cloths into several t-shirts ready to catch the infant that was already crowning. I placed a hand firmly on her backbone and bore down gently, coaxing her to push back against my hand. After a few tries at this technique, the baby emerged and I gasp, catching more fluid in one of the shirts, with the baby dropping off into the cloth shortly after. 

It was incredible, the small creature slumped peacefully in the once yellow cloth, coated in a white chalky substance and covered in deep blue veins. Trish groans once more and turns over on the rug, gulping for air, and I turn the baby on its side in the blanket, allowing the fluid to remove itself from its lungs.

Immediately it shrills a loud, ear tingling cry and I nearly drop it, as the sound echoes throughout the entire storefront. I rock backwards and give a small hiss to quiet the child. The sudden movement and the cool air around them only forced the child to squeal even further, and I began to panic and shove the small creature onto Trisha's chest and back away. It continues to scream even as she attempts to sooth it, and I stand up sharply. 

I grab my duffle and choke out an apology- Trish looks at me with fear in her own eyes but there is no time, and no doubt that Enhanced hear these cries. I hitch my duffle bad over my shoulder and press towards the back door- stopping just long enough to grab the jacket she no longer would need.   
“Don’t leave!” Trish said, rolling over and letting her baby drop to the rug. She grabbed the other end of the jacket with knobby fingers. “Please don't- don’t leave me here.” The babies cries further send chills up my spine and I yank the jacket from her grasp, her face a mask of horror. She opens her mouth to beg once more but there is a banging instead.

Loud bangs come from the door we had entered, and with Trish turning towards the sound I bolt, taking with me her reclaimed jacket and exiting the door at the back. I am met once more with a tunnel of darkness only broken up by a light at the end of it, and I run, stumbling over cardboard boxes and reminisce of store stock

My only goal is the brightness at the end, but it is all I need as a scream of pure terror sounds behind me along with the cascading screams of the newborn infant that followed me out into the blinding light. I never knew what happened to them after that, and although I feared what was to become of all of us Organics, I never once looked back for the woman with the baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end so far. If I ever get more muse for this story I will reopen it, but as of right now that is a big portion of my dream in more detail that I even felt in the moments of it. If any dream interpreters are out there, I would adore some insight!


End file.
